Gurugram-based Carna Medical Database Pvt Ltd, a joint venture of two Japanese companies, is all set to revolutionize the way India manages its supply chain of medical consumables and disposals. The company today launched first-of-its kind in India ‘Medical Product Catalogue’ to standardize medical product data. The Catalogue serves as the stepping stone in establishing Carna in the Indian Medical Industry as it contains around 26000 consumables and disposables product data from medical manufacturers all over India.

India’s healthcare sector is witnessing a double digit growth. But the supply chain is still in its primitive stage. In view of huge potential that exists in India and a success in Japan, two Japanese giants Konoike Transport and Medius Holdings decided to invest in India where healthcare infrastructure has been a top priority. With initial capital investment of INR 200 million, Konoike and Medius established a joint venture in India Carna Medical Database Pvt Ltd to implement Japanese technology and a real time-tested expertise to create and distribute a medical consumable database and establishing a logistic network to smoothen Indian medical healthcare supply chain management system.

Konoike Transport Co. Ltd, listed in first section of Tokyo Stock Exchange last March is a total logistic provider for more than 130 years. With strong positioning in medical-related services as one of the next gen core business areas, the company provides total solution service. Konoike has majority share (70%) in Carna. Medius Holdings is one of the largest medical equipment distributors in Japan. It provides safe and efficient medical services by utilizing its unique logistic system and medical equipment database.

Over the past 20 years, digitization and IT has witnessed a rapid growth in Japan, and electronic medical records and in hospital management systems are widespread across hospitals. Konoike and Medius capitalized the growth of digitization and IT for healthcare sector. Now they are all set to revolutionize the way India look at its supply chain management of medical consumables and disposals.

After two years of tedious work, Carna comes out with ‘Medical Product Catalogue’. Containing detailed information about medical consumables, disposables, and implants, the Catalogue serves as a solution to streamline the supply chain management process and offers a wide variety of equipment to choose from. The Catalogue is the first step to the future of a digitalized Indian healthcare sector.

Speaking on the launch ceremony, Executive Director of Konoike Transport Co. Ltd. and Managing Director of Carna Mr. Minoru Amano said, “Our objective is to deliver services to hospitals, medical manufacturers and medical distributors by providing them eight levels of classification and a unique coding system for each medical product. This database incorporates detailed information about all the consumables, disposables and implants available at a single search enabled and interactive platform.”

“Healthcare in India is growing at a very fast pace. It is expected to be $280 billion in size by 2020, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 16 per cent. Lots of new hospitals are opening and healthcare has taken a tremendous leap in service standards. But, the supply chain is still at its primitive stage, the orders are still made manually and a lot of discrepancies are observed in nomenclature of products at various levels. It has been determined that uniform codes for each medical material will play a vital role in the development of medical supply chain management system,” he added.

The product is the first-of-its kind, launched ever in the country and will be distributed PAN India to over 8000 hospitals. It will reach hospitals in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities as well. The Catalogue will be an annual release and it is expected to grow aggressively in the near future.

“Compared to Japan, India is expected to grow at a faster rate than Japan, hence, we decided to create and promote a standard code to achieve digitization,” Dr. Ashutosh Shukla, Director and Senior Consultant of the Department of Medicine, Artemis Hospital said.

“So far we have some database for pharma products, but in India there was no such data for medical consumables and disposals. Our aim is to complete the supply chain management for medical consumables and disposals. The Catalogue provides a common platform for supply chain,” he added.

The importance of the database can easily be gauged with the fact that some of the Indian importers were pleasantly surprised to know that the products they were importing so far, were easily available in their own city.

After two years of data gathering, survey, research, legwork and analysis, Carna has come out with a compact database to revolutionize the supply chain management of the most critical component of healthcare sector - medical consumables and disposals.

The QR Codes

QR Codes have been strategically placed in the catalogue to help hospitals instantly get in touch with manufacturers and distributors. About the use of the Catalogue, the CEO said, “All you need is a smart phone and a QR reading App. It is all about scanning. Just scan QR code at the bottom of left hand page of catalogue, you will be redirected to the Carna Medical Database website home page. Further scan QR code at the bottom of right hand page of catalogue, you will be redirected to the Carna Medical Database website department page. Scanning connects you with manufacturing and supplier in the process.”

“We hope to standardize Carna Code throughout India. Currently we have covered 26000+ data and our target is to have 100,000+ Data in the next phase,” said Mr. Minoru Amano.

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